


Minstrel, The

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Engaging gap-filler, Canon - Enhances original, Canon - Fills plot hole(s), Canon - Outstanding AU/reinterpretation, Characters - Friendship, Characters - Good use of minor character(s), Characters - New interpretation, Characters - Strongly in character, Characters - Well-handled emotions, Characters - Well-handled romance/eroticism, Multi-Age, Plot - Bittersweet, Plot - Can't stop reading, Plot - Fast moving, Plot - Good pacing, Plot - I reread often, Plot - Tear-jerker, Poetry, Subjects - Culture(s), Subjects - Explores obscure facts, Subjects - Legends/Myth/History, Writing - Clear prose, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Experimental, Writing - Foreshadowing, Writing - Mythic/Poetic, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 21:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3743580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Daeron poem, post-Luthien. In the style of the Lay of Leithian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minstrel, The

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

When sun has died and moon has grown,  
And magic twinkles in the gloam,  
No more does mystic lilting tune,  
Craft greetings to the rising moon,  
Or dance among star-shadowed trees,  
Or whisper secrets to the breeze;  
For Doriath is drownéd deep –  
Tinúviel lies long in sleep,  
The Maia mourns in deathless lands,  
The King lies slain by dwarvern hands;  
The trees are burned and wreathed in smoke,  
And none remain of Thingol’s folk;  
And none shall yet wake Lúthien,  
Her fate now that of mortal Men;  
The nightingales are choked and dead,  
And Elwë’s minstrel since has fled,  
From tree and branch and hemlock-haze,  
To lands far from the dead sun’s gaze;  
To sit beside moon-mirrored pools,  
And sing laments of dreams and fools;  
Of lovers scorned and dances stilled,  
A poet blind, a music killed,  
A dooméd fate, one twice-betrayed,  
A child of Light, a curse self-made,  
Yet who now, save for beasts and birds,  
Will hear his half-sung, half-sobbed words?  
The Elves have fled from Hither Shores,  
O’er foam-flecked waves to Valinor,  
And Men heed not the ghostly tune,  
That shies from sun and hides ‘neath moon.  
But there he sits and plays in grief,  
For every bough and branch and leaf,  
And every tree of Doriath,  
Now faded down time’s endless path,  
But most of all he sings and plays,  
Of lost-forever far-off glades,  
And nights spent dancing ‘neath dark skies;  
How fate played shadows in her eyes,  
How starlight lay within her hair,  
And hemlock-mist bedecked the air.  
How magic wove among the trees,  
And laughter echoed on the breeze,  
But Doriath is drownéd deep,  
And Lúthien lies long in sleep;  
For she has fled beyond the earth,  
To fated love and self-wrought curse;  
But Daeron sits and Daeron plays,  
To that which lies beneath the waves;  
And he, who mourns but never dies  
Whispers her name to faded skies;  
And wanders long by moonless streams,  
And sings laments of broken dreams.


End file.
